Posted by on May 25, 2009 in
Uncategorized I’ve hit a snag in my book writing progress and for days I couldn’t figure out why. Whenever I thought about opening up the document, I’d always find something else to do. Then, today, I figured it out. It’s because I’m trying to write the book the way I write articles.
You see, many people outline their articles on paper before they begin to complete the articles on paper or in a word processor. Not me. I think about how I want the articles to flow and then I start writing. I tried to do the same thing with my book. I thought I could think it through, but if I’m aiming for ~100 pages, that’s impossible. Though I’d written an outline, it was very top level and left me wondering where to start. I know better than that.
I’m going to take what I have so far and transfer it to notecards, then completely flesh out the idea on notecards before I start trying to type the book. I may even do it the way we did in grade school - write the entire book out on notecards. That way, I can arrange, rearrange, and continue to keep a visual picture of what I’m writing. You know, I really can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.
Posted by on May 3, 2009 in
Book Writing I’m off to a pretty slow start on my book. So far I have an outline and 1,000 words. It’s not where I want to be, but it’s better than nothing.
As I started writing this post, it dawned on me that I didn’t have any daily or weekly goals for the book. So far, all I’ve come up with is a total word count.
I’m going to give myself 30 days starting May 1 to have a draft complete (because I want to have the draft done by the end of may). That means I need to write 1,000 words a day or 7,000 a week. Since I backdated the start date, I need to play catch up. For the rest of this week, I need to write 1,500 words a day to meet my weekly goal. I’m sure I can do that.
Distribution, Marketing, etc.
At this point, I’m still deciding whether the book will be available in digital format only, or if I want to go to press with it. My initial thoughts were to start digital sales and then use the proceeds from that to publish hard copies. I may still go with that plan depending on how the first sales start out.
I also need to firm up my marketing plan. It’s not smart for me to create a marketing plan after the book’s done to start marketing it because I want to start selling it when it’s done. I’m thinking about how I’ve seen other writers market their books. Press releases, book reviews, and press releases seem commonplace. If I’m going to be selling online, word-of-mouth will be the biggest factor in getting the book sold.
As you can tell, I have a long way to go, but I’m thinking about these things on a daily basis. So, stay tuned for the progress.
